Experimental HIV Vaccine Based On mRNA Technology Now In Clinical Trial
Via WaPo:
Researchers have started administering doses of an experimental HIV vaccine that uses the breakthrough mRNA technology in Moderna’s coronavirus shot.
U.S. biotech firm Moderna and the nonprofit International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) are exploring the use of mRNA technology, which prompts the body to make a protein that triggers an immune response (the technology also is used in Pfizer’s coronavirus shot). Researchers will monitor 56 HIV-negative adults for six months in the Phase 1 clinical trial, typically the first step in a long road to study the safety and efficacy of a vaccine.
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HIV integrates itself into the body’s cells, meaning a vaccine has to start working immediately to rout it.
The new trial in the United States, which Moderna announced began on Thursday, will test a hypothesis that delivering HIV immunogens — proteins that elicit an immune response to HIV — through mRNA technology can spur the body to produce antibodies that neutralize a range of HIV variants.
This “is widely considered to be a goal of HIV vaccination, and this is the first step in that process,” the company said in a statement. Forty-eight participants will get one or two doses of the vaccine, with 32 of them also taking a booster shot. The other eight volunteers will receive only the booster.
[Washington Post: Experimental HIV vaccine, based on Moderna’s mRNA technology, now in clinical trial]
